How clean are Europe’s cars 2015

Published on June 11, 2015 - 10:57

The EU set legally-binding targets for new cars to emit on average 130 grams of CO₂ per kilometre (g/km) by 2015 and 95g/km by 2021. This report, the 10th annual edition in the series by T&E, analyses the official data from the European Environment Agency on progress towards these targets made by carmakers in 2014. Click below to download the report and infographic.

The main findings of the How Cleans are Europe's cars 2015 edition are:

- Overall CO2 emissions from new cars sold in 2014 were 123.4g/km, a reduction of 2.6%- Peugeot-Citroën has the lowest average emissions at 110g/km; Honda has the highest emissions (133g/km)- The most rapid progress was made by Nissan, which reduced its emissions by 12%- Ford and Hyundai actually increased their emissions- The 130g/km target for 2015 has already overachieved across the new car fleet as a whole. Honda, Suzuki and Hyundai have still to meet this target and look unlikely to do so next year- On average the 95g/km target is expected to be met by 2021 but this masks widely differing performances between carmakers- Provisional analysis suggests none of the progress recorded in official figures delivered a real-world fuel economy improvement due to manipulation of tests- Electric vehicle sales continue to grow strongly up to 67,000 vehicles but still only represent 0.5% of the total annual sales- Supercredits only confer a significant benefit on Mitsubishi and Nissan and these had already exceeded their 2015 targets without the additional credits- The European Commission needs to propose a 2025 target in 2016 as part of the package of proposals on the 2030 effort sharing decision for the non-ETS emissions